Zeitgeist?

[_GoodK]

Anyone seen this?

http://zeitgeistmovie.com/

I sat and watched all two hours of it, scribbling notes, and thought to myself, 'man, I have a lot of fact checking to do.'

Before I headed to the library I wanted to see if this has already been discussed here, or if anyone has some opinions.

Thanks.

Best,

Good K

[_Gazelam]

For those interested:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zeitgeist,_the_Movie

[_Bryan Inks]

Anyone seen this?

http://zeitgeistmovie.com/

I sat and watched all two hours of it, scribbling notes, and thought to myself, 'man, I have a lot of fact checking to do.'

Before I headed to the library I wanted to see if this has already been discussed here, or if anyone has some opinions.

Thanks.

Best,

Good K

The interactive transcript on the site has a link to each reference used throughout the show.

The religion section was absolutely wonderful, in my opinion, as it took a lot of information that I already knew and tied it all together in a way that I hadn't thought of previously.

[_solomarineris]

Anyone seen this?

http://zeitgeistmovie.com/

I sat and watched all two hours of it, scribbling notes, and thought to myself, 'man, I have a lot of fact checking to do.'

Before I headed to the library I wanted to see if this has already been discussed here, or if anyone has some opinions.

Thanks.

Best,

Good K

What a brutal truth to face!!!
I knew there was a good reason to kick you outta MADDD.
many thanks goodK.

[_dartagnan]

This was an excellent synopsis by Jay Kinney:

The latest bit of guerrilla media to take the online universe by storm is “Zeitgeist, the Movie.” Clocking in at close to two hours’ length, and with over a million views on Google Video since its June 26th “official” release, Zeitgeist is a grabby, cranky, can’t-stop-watching-it documentary that purports to tell the real truth about Christianity, 9/11, and the International Bankers.

Exactly who is behind the video is unclear, although someone with the moniker of “Peter J.” has posted an online letter claiming credit and explaining Zeitgeist’s message to those who may have somehow failed to grasp the worldview that the video hammers home.

And what is that worldview, pray tell? Religions in general, and Christianity in particular, are primarily systems of social control. 9/11 was an inside job and the destruction of the WTC twin towers and building 7 were aided by controlled demolition. And finally, International Bankers, through the Federal Reserve and the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), control our money and our future, leading to, ta da, the coming One World Government and the microchipping of everyone.

Exactly how all this fits together is left to the viewer’s imagination or, presumably, the film-maker’s hash pipe. Are those who manipulate Christianity for control purposes in cahoots with the Bankers, and were the Bankers in on the 9/11 caper? Zeitgeist sidesteps such logical questions through the use of the all-purpose term, “the elite,” a shadowy group of rich and powerful men who want nothing more than to enslave humanity and reap block-buster profits through the promotion of wars and financial crises.

For conspiracy buffs, this is all pretty standard fare, and, indeed, aficionados of the genre will find little new in “Zeitgeist.” The notions that most religions were originally a kind of solar worship, and that the Jesus Christ story recapitulated the mythos of numerous other “dying gods,” were floating around in the late 1700s. Fittingly, the video features a quote from Thomas Paine reducing Christianity to warmed-over sun worship, which was a daring bit of religion-baiting 200 years ago, albeit not so earth-shattering today.

The nefarious International Bankers meme has been propagating itself since at least the mid-1800s and has long been a mainstay of radical right-wing circles where it has often overlapped with mutterings about Jewish cabals.

The 9/11 truth segment of the video is, of course, of much more recent vintage, but, here too, it mostly repeats accusations that have gotten widespread play in the uber-skeptic milieu.

Breaking new factual ground is not what Zeitgeist is about, however. Rather, the video is a powerful and fast-acting dose of agitprop, hawking its conclusions as givens. Unfortunately, like most propaganda, it doesn’t play fair with its intended audience. At times, while watching it, I felt like I was getting Malcolm McDowell’s treatment in Clockwork Orange: eyes pried wide open while getting bombarded with quick-cut atrocity photos.

At other times, Zeitgeist engages in willful confusion by showing TV screen shots of network or cable news with voice-overs from unidentified people not associated with the news programs. If one weren’t paying close attention, the effect would be to confer the status and authority of TV news upon the words being spoken. Even when quotes or sound bites are attributed to a source, there’s no way to tell if they are quoted correctly or in context.

Late in the video, there’s a supposed quote from David Rockefeller, which, if genuine, would be an astounding confession of complicity in mass manipulation. But, of course, the quote is not sourced or dated, which renders it useless. (The video’s website does feature a Sources page, but a hodge-podge list of books, with no page numbers cited, is of little value for source verification.)

The over-all temper of the video is rather like the John Birch Society on acid, with interludes by Harry Smith. Incongruously, after spending nearly two hours trying to scare the bejeezis out of its viewers, Zeitgeist ends on an oddly upbeat note, telling us that Love — not Fear — is the answer, We are all One, and featuring sound-bites from Ram Dass and Carl Sagan.

It’s a shame, really, that Zeitgeist is, ultimately, such a mess. There are plenty of legitimate questions about what transpired on 9/11, just as there are plenty of shady doings in international finance or puzzling aspects of religious history, for that matter. And what is coming down in the name of National Security is truly unnerving. Yet, bundling them all together in disjointed fashion does justice to none of them. Time and again, Zeitgeist maximizes emotional impact at the expense of a more reasoned weighing of evidence. But, perhaps that’s the intention.

I’ve often pondered about what it might take to snap everyone out of the walking dream we collectively entered on 9/11/01. Just as the fall of the Berlin Wall provided the emotional pivot for the end of the Cold War, only a collective experience of an intensity equal to that of 9/11 might jolt us awake as to what is really happening in the corridors of power and certain undisclosed locations.

It’s my hunch that Zeitgeist is one attempt to provide such a jolt, and it does indeed pack a certain punch. Too bad it also runs off in three directions at once, and is so indiscriminate in its sources and overly certain of its conclusions. Zeitgeist may be powerful, but its power is tainted with some simplistic and pernicious memes that have already received more propagation than they deserve. The video’s producer does inform us that “It is my hope that people will not take what is said in the film as the truth . . .”

Indeed.

[Guest]

I couldn't watch through more than 30 minutes... but is this the movie that claims there is a conspiracy to kill 80% of the world's population? A buddy of mine tried showing me this one night but I fell asleep while watching it. He was a fan of numerous conspiracy theories. Even Hurricane Katrina was planned to some extent he said. The levy you see, was broken because divers had planted bombs beforehand (no, I'm not kidding!). And of course, the reason the government was late in rescue attempts was because it really wanted as many people to die as possible.

Is this the movie that sponsor's such nonsense?

People will believe just about anything nowadays, and it is sad. People who produce crap films like these know the world is full of gullible people. Christianity started off as a bunch of pagan sun worshippers? Good grief, this not new stuff at all. Its like he took a few issues that would scare the s*** out of people, for shock purposes only. All three have virtually nothing to do with one another: Christain origins, internatinal banks, 9-11?

What's the connection? The film doesn't say. One might as well start a short flick about JFK's assassination and connect it with segment about aliens building the Egyptian pyramids. It is like some guys got together and said, let's make a movie about various topics to freak people out. Truth be damned.

[_Ray A]

This was an excellent synopsis by Jay Kinney:

It certainly was.

[_Imwashingmypirate]

You got my attention. Some parts sounded familiar. Some parts made sense. I could easily believe everything I have seen so far. I saw up to the banks part. I really should sleep. I don't see why talk about Christianity [ ooooh Woodrow Wilson was a Mormon. No?], What does Christianity have to do with conspiracy... Ohhh I get it. Never mind.

[_Imwashingmypirate]

Some of it kinda reminds me of one of my posts.

"......................The government are not the government you know. They know everything that is happening. They know all that is going to happen. They have more power than you know. They know of the wars before they are even thought of. They have also got the awnsers. The government isn't the government, that is just what I am calling them, but they work with the government. They are keeping things, big things from us. They don't want us to know. So in order to prevent us they cause generation gaps. The give us media, People are manipulated and controlled by the media. The government does this.
All media, all technology, all materialistic things. That includes religion of sorts, but looking at parralels it kinda suggest's that the stuff discussed in the Bible is not of deity or religious as we know it, but rather that this "diety" is the power at the top most, the highest possible dimention which is infinite, this being because when you have everything there is nothing more to have and it surpasses far beyond time dimensions. This is to prevent us from ever finding the pure thing that they are keeping. They allow a little progression and then take it. It is like a cycle. So although we advance in techno, we do not advance in pure and simple true knowledge. But it is the things we are advancing in that are holding us back. It is the higher dimensions that will allow progresion.

Quite often we have bouts of disease that wipe out loads of people. The government see this coming because they know everything they know these things and have control over them. They cause wars to focus our attention. They cause illness to control population size and the chance of them being over powered. They have the knowledge to cure illness, but don't. They will when it is appropriate. to them.

......................a rapid bout of technology and these forms of advancement.

It all interlinks. Everything. I mean absolutely everything. ...................................."


Pirate.

[_Gadianton]

I watched most of it. One major problem with conspiricy theories on this scale is that the conspiritors would have to be Gods themselves to pull it off, to carefully calculate all the moves, to predict the future with such precise control. And it's so simple, the complex world can be unraveled in two hours.

-Christianity. It's a scam on many levels, not a simple astrology scam. :)

-911. ok, there's another thread on that.

-Central banks. They are an evil arm of the government to rob the people. Oh, but the US Central Bank is evil because its ran by a private board with little government oversight. Obviously, the possibilities of corruption are endless in business, politics, religion, and banking, but the world can't run as a giant barter market under an anarchy. The Gold standard was part of the reason why the depression happened since the Fed couldn't increase the money supply even if it would have wanted to. Precious metal standards (despite Greenspan's odd love for them) are outdated. And they never historically worked wonders either. It could be argued that rather than America stealing from its citizens in the last part of the 20th century, that America, including its credit hungary bamboozled citizens stole from Europe under the Brenton-Woods agreement where the dollar essentially became a placeholder for Gold. And that America thereafter was shocked back into place by the "oil standard". The end result of these failures is FOREX. Everyone can have fiat money and cheat by dishonest central banking because as macro-economic information becomes increasingly global and easy to obtain, it doesn't matter. The market keeps currencies in check by other currencies 24/7.

- taxes. Ok, they're unconstitutional and we can't find a law on the book (as if half the laws on the books aren't scams anyways). A national government will need to tax. Irrespective of how corrupt the system is, I doubt there's a way around it.

- The "entertainment as conspiricy" was probably the most laughable part of the documentary. Yeah, while other government school their children to death and education is enforced militantly, the fact that American kids instead have infinite entertainment options is proof that the government is controling their every move. If it is true that America is losing its economic competitive edge, something I'm not convinced of, then I'm sure the tradeoff of foreign nations slowly tacking us over is worth it for the government as the option of "thinking" would mean uncovering the secret deeds of the Robber Barons and corrupt politicians. (speaking of which, how many well-respected international scholars have used their superior educations and concluded similar things as the producers of this documentary?)

- And then the loss of freedoms, identity chips and all that. If you've really, really pissed off someone in power, you're going to be screwed one way or another. For a society that's being bred in consumption and laziness, the state is going to have a terrible time locking up millions of undisciplined Americans in their already overcrowded jails for treason. It's kind of like the Christian threat of all your personal deeds being displayed on a big screen in heaven for the world to see. No one is going to notice